Personally I dont think the game is broken, just the balance appears to be a tad biased. Biased towards the furballers, to the detriment of the base takers (speaking in general here)
To resolve that, it could be an idea to adjust the radar height from 65ft to 150, but remove the ability to put the plane on auto pilot. Adjust the requirement for town to be fully down (80 - 90%? instead) which could be done globally without (if the way its coded allows) having to adjust all the towns individually.
This would give the base takers the ability to run noe missions, but make them work at it too. Leave the radar rings size as is, and make town flash when an NOE hits the outer limits of the radar (as it currently does).
Merely options, ymmv,
Wurzel